All this venom started with an entertainer named Mort Downey in the 80s with his TV show. He did well previously as a beligarant DJ in Sacramento and greased the skids for his replacement at the radio station, Russ Limbaugh.

Downey’s TV show regularly would have Neo Nazis and other equally as extreme guests on the show whom would insult each other and get into fist fights. This led the way to more garbage shows like Geraldo Rivera’s show where he had his nose broken by a chair in a fight with Neo Nazis. Ratings were sky high and it moved into the main stream new media.

The result of all this was CNN ran with CrossFire......a left right scream Fest.
MSNBC briefly hired Mike Savage....thrown off the show after calling gays sodomites deserving of AIDS
Roger Ailes brought FOX out through News Corp and we were blessed with brain damaged Glen Beck and a cast for former alcoholics, whoremongers and an assorted collection of poleminc blow hards.

Hey, I was just trying to be funny. I make a lot of spelling mistakes too (I don't use spell check because I prefer British spelling).
Anyway, I am definitely not a fan of Rush Limbaugh. In fact I am probably a lot closer to Michael Moore, politically speaking!

If you really think MSNBC is a "legitimate news outlet" you are using tunnel-vision of your own vis a vis people who agree with you. Studies in fact show that MSNBC is far more partisan than Fox, and often, from what I've seen, is downright hateful.

That said the idea of news objectivity is relatively new, beginning in the last century. Prior to that most newspapers were highly partisan and founded to reflect a point of view.

With all due respect, Steve Almond is a complete nutcase. Anyone seeking to silence demagogues and extremists should put him towards the top of the list. He's the very definition of a divisive, angry partisan. He's also a huge fan of the Fairness Doctrine.

As you might recall he resigned from Boston College because they dared to invite Condoleeza Rice.

I know WW is just having fun, but it's both amusing and frightening to see how many commenters actually take Almond seriously. Just goes to show how looney-left this place has become.

The point is that many right wing commentators often work by provoking reactions by using outlandish comparisons, racist, sexist or generally insulting language, in a deliberate attempt to cause offense. In internet parlance, they are trolls.

Sometimes it blows back on them, as in Limbaugh's calling Ms Fluke a prostitute because she argued for state support for contraception. However often the outpouring of righteous scorn after such remarks tends to increase media profile and improve the penetration of the message. Almond is asking that such comments be ignored. Where he is wrong, of course is to assume they really need this backlash in order to function.

In a way, I think the political right wing was the first to realise that there is no place for reasoned debate on modern media. The only thing that fits in the 12 minutes between ad breaks is an easily digestible download of prejudices.

I am reminded of Yeat's
"The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity."

The current level of political discourse in America is in a word due to ignorance. There are two types of ignorance. There is the condition of not knowing which can be ameliotated by supplying additional information. Then there is willful ignorance characterized by the inability to recognise that information which contradicts your views exists and may well have credible validity.

America was founded as a religious nation and the majority of citizens are still religious. Hence they are used to dealing with absolutes. A considerable number still have absolute belief in the bible.

Similarly there is an absolute belief in the Constitution, despite its obvious flaws.

The idea that there is merit in ideas which contradict your chosen path is akin to treachery. The pundits take full advantage of this situation, by continuously and loudly proclaiming one side and issuing unsupported sound bites as to how bad the other side is. There is also a great deal of grimacing and posturing to add to the entertainment value.

The idea that there might possibly be weakneses in the American political system is unthinkable. The majority of Americans believe that they live in a democracy, inspite of the fact that the founding fathers deliberately produced a form of republic because they wished to avoid the tyrrany of the majority.

While I agree that Mr Almond's treatise has some significant flaws, the least of which that ignoring propaganda and disinformation makes it go away, I support the fundamental contention that 'liberals' indignant reactivity has helped to nurture political parasitism of the Right. In this circumstance, however, ignoring should not mean not responding but responding in wholesale different ways.

For instance, rather than demanding apologies and being drawn into strawman arguments time and time again, the 'liberal' opposition should focus on countering the blather with fundamental fact. Since 'fact' is routinely manipulated and sometimes outright denied by the likes of Limbaugh, Hannity and Fox, a strategy would be to counter delusion with fact over and over again rather than constantly waxing indignant over the delusion alone.

And this has already worked in small ways. Though I forget her name, an underdog running for the House in upstate New York some months back was able to win the seat when she stopped arguing and provided citizens the facts surrounding Paul Ryan's attempt to gut Medicare funding. People listened, understood and voted her in.

So while I agree with the Economist's general point here that Mr Almond's recommendations reflect some far over extended premises, I also think Almond's concept would have value with further thought and refinement.

Listened to fox a couple of years back,couldn't stand the venom after a few minutes.
As a non-American,I find it horrifying that fox outscores all other channels.
Is there so much hate in America,Americans?
It's scary that in the country that the row looks up to has the most and so many minds whose sole thoughts r so full of spite towards fellow human beings just bec they espouse a different ideology.
If as so many posts say,fox is just doing it for the money it's worse.
How many of today's fox listeners know that the extreme right wing rooted for hitler?
That might change a lot of minds abt fox.
Americans, u r the most endowed country on earth.u r at the forefront of science,technology,innovation for humankind.u have the highest no of nobels.
U should be leading the way in compassion.
Fox is the antithesis of American,in fact,anti-American.
Consign it to the dustbin where it belongs.

Bala,
Fox does not outscore any other network here in America. That is just another lie, which is why we are having these conversations. And to answer your question about hate in America, YES! there is that much hate in this country. It just happened that now is a great opportunity to express it and get away with it.

Obama himself has NOT divided a single thing since he took office. However, to many so called "right-wingers" he is still part of "those people" or "them", ot "you people". As long as you are white you will be "American", otherwise you will be "those". So who's dividing this country again?

well, what gives me hope is that obama won an overwhelming mandate in 2008, so things can't be as bad as one thinks from fox.
besides, the impression one has abt the tea party types is like many r born again christians.surely they should'nt be espousing hate media.
someone should tell them how unchristian fox is.(don't know if fox plays the religous card, in which case the expose is even easier).

The only reason Fox News is considered by some to be so "Far Right", Is because MSNBC is so "Far Left". It's teetering over Lenins term of "Useful Idiots", Only now with no agenda to serve but their own.

Obama has not divided a single thing? He specializes in dividing and carving off segments of the population with that which he proposes to give them. The poor, students, hispanics and blacks, unions; all at the expense of responsible government, of which he clearly knows nothing about. It's sad to have one failed presidency followed by another.

American Fossil and other Conservative posters: Let's be clear about your facts and figures. Playing loose with numbers might work for the Fox news team, but it won't fly with The Economist readers. Your inclusion of data would seem compelling.....if it was complete.
1. The Fed reporting of declining net worth of Americans clearly states:
"It’s important to remember that you can’t make broad conclusions based on this data."
Yet you seem to be doing that. The numbers released by the Fed actually show a decline in net worth from 2007 (I'm pretty sure that's before Obama took office) to 2010. The report also notes that these losses were linked to declining home values, based on overheated home prices, especially in areas such as Nevada, Florida and California. In other words, people who bought that over-priced house for $300,000 in 2007 found themselves with the cold, hard reality in 2010 that it is actually worth $180,000. There's your drop in net worth. Read the Fed report - it is pretty clear.
2. Obama inherited the largest debt in American history - he certainly didn't create it. Those massive bailouts started in 2008.
3. Unemployment started to take a dive when the world economy started to contract in 2007. From a govt trade report:
"The number of jobs supported by exports declined sharply in 2009 from 2008."
Exports decline.....unemployment rises.
3. Highest spending? Really? Again, Obama inherited the largest increases in govt spending since WW2. Those massive spending increases during the Bush years were directly attributed to the budgets submitted from the White House - not add ons from the Congress.

Taking office in January 2009 must have been a real joy. To lay all of those problems at the feet of Obama is absurd.
In the future, if you insist on 'quoting' data, please use it in its entirety and try to keep it in context.
I am truly amazed at right wingers talking about the financial prowess of the Right, and the lack of economic sense of the Left. There is absolutely no data to support this theory.
If you have actual data to support your issue, please feel free to share it. If you simply have rants - Obama is a secret communist! - Hillary likes women! - the economy was PERFECT when Obama took office - and any other absurd beliefs, please share those with the other folks at www.Palin.com. This is The Economist - let's act like we know a little something about the issues at hand.

I agree with everything you have written, but want to add one thing that is consistently overlooked by conservatives....most of the spending attributed to Obama occurred during the 2009 fiscal year. The budget for the 2009 fiscal year was passed in 2008. Thus while technically occurring under Obama's watch, it was Bush's spending plan that Obama inherited.

Romney has had the distinct habit of blaming Obama for every economic and employment number over the President's first year in office while distinctively arguing against his own accountability for those same numbers over his first year as the governor or Massachusetts.

but in reverse, theres a reason why I don't watch Fox news, listening to obviously flawed non critical logic gets annoying, but thats the same thing the Economist has been doing lately, but even more annoyingly.

Its been more enjoyable reading the New York times lately than having to hear the Economist lopsided biased rants over and over again.

What a perfect picture to accompany an article on right wing media in America: Sean Hannity. Yet another poster child of the Far Right. Let's see....Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh...the Far Right Gold standard. All are college drop-outs,have never served in the military or held public office, failed initially in their careers, but discovered that magic key to success - the angry white male. I imagine they send monthly royalty checks to Howard Stern who taught them to succeed on radio, one must shock the audience. None of these Nobel Laureates had any interest in political, social or economic views, but realized they could tap into the nerves of that white, middle class (mainly male) audience that was confused, angry and disoriented with the constant changes happening in the world they lived in. Bingo! First rule of marketing: tap into a consumer's fear. Fear of an ever changing world dynamic. Hannity, Limbaugh, Fox and all the others don't really care about Blue states or Red states. They are concerned with Green states -money; advertising revenues. Scare mongering is good business, and business is booming. People today forget where the term 'liberal media' came from. It was a concerted effort from the Nixon White House, increasingly alarmed about negative news items in the media about the Nixon White House. And polls showed more and more people were believing these news stories (which happened to be true in most cases). How to combat that? Simple - claim the media was aligned with those 'liberal', un-American types, who were destroying America from within. Jerry Falwell and the Moral Majority used these same tactics in the 80s, just like Fox does today. It's a solid marketing formula - use that fear to stoke people's anxieties.
Here's a note to all those right wingers who obsess about the 'liberal' media: there is no liberal media. It's that simple. 95% of all media in America today is controlled by 6 corporations.
'Liberal' CNN? Part of Time-Warner....the world's largest media company. You are being taken for a ride. This is not a conspiracy theory - this is simply realizing that Big Pharma, Big Ag, Big Oil have a cousin....Big Media. And Big Media would like to thank you all for buying those idiotic Limbaugh/Hannity/Beck/Palin books (all with an eagle or flag or Statue of Liberty on the cover - you know, to prove they are REAL Americans).
I challenge any conservative to give a SPECIFIC example of media liberal bias. No broad strokes - specific examples.
Guns, God and Gays....the marketing mantra of the conservative right today. The playbook is tired and old. Yet it keeps on working. How else to explain the popularity of Palin, Huckabee and the rest of the deep thinkers. Sigh.....

HyunSmith - I asked for specific examples of supposed liberal media bias. You offer up this: The Economist. The Economist is a 169 year old respected British financial publication. Please point me to a specific example you are claiming to have a liberal bias. If you are using the article above, "Almond's Ostrich", please note that this is written as an opinion piece in the magazine's blog on American culture. It clearly states it is an opinion piece.
"you mad bro?"........sigh......another wonderful example of the dumbing down of American discourse. Conservative leaders and voices today offer nothing in terms of original or enlightening thought. Where are the Safires and Buckleys and Kirkpatricks of the modern Conservative movement? Any true member of the Conservative Right cannot honestly say with pride that they feel what pases for Conservative thought today is remotely intelligent or inspired. It is simply appalling what the Right has turned into.
Limbaugh/Beck/Hannity and now...."you mad bro?".
Wonderful work. Keep it up.
Internet memes like this reinforce my point. Thank you.

To offer up specific instances of "Liberal Bias" would require context and history. Not some quib or footnote or link. Therein lies the "Liberal bias". And the contextual circumstance of "Liberalism". To assume or presume under a haughty presence, That an extremely sexually active woman should have her contraception subsidized by the state, 'Is' "Liberal bias". Rush Limbaugh firing off, And calling her a "Slut", (When she may or may not be), Is highly criticized, While (I can't remember his name), But the left wing psychopath calls Laura Ingrahm a "Talk slut", And announces his desire to sodomize Sean Hannity with a football. There are a few examples.

"To offer up specific instances of "Liberal Bias" would require context and history. Not some quib or footnote or link. Therein lies the "Liberal bias"....."
That is truly one of the most absurd answers I have ever heard. Accusations, by their very nature, are directly related to the presence of specific and quantifiable examples. That's how legal systems work. I assume you would want a police officer to tell you exactly what you were doing wrong, correct? Well, that same expectation applies with these accusations of a liberal bias in the mainstream media. If you cannot offer up any proof - and you clearly did not in your post above - then, quite frankly, you have nothing to offer except hearsay and gossip.
Keep listening to the All Stars (Hannity, Limbaugh, Beck, etc)
They have obviously improved your capacity to understand and articulate key points. Well done, Maistre. Another Dittohead in action!

Watch a series of news channels and their commentary, They are identical, With few exceptions. "Liberal Bias" Is a context, Not a series of references in a bibliography. I dont have time to sit here and offer you a contextual histoire of the last 60 years. The typical deluded Univeristy nitwit which is the perfect example of said bias in the first place. To reduce what amounts to a larger context to specific instances or citations, Or to compare the conduct or activity of a police officer, With what is a much larger and more encompassing circumstance, Is as logical as comparing pears to pomegranates. If the view of the "Enlightened Left" is a formal fallacy, that may be the underlying example you seek. If you need specific examples, Watch the television, And pretend I was showing them to you.

Liberals are just sad, confused and bitterly insecure people for the most part. Never met one yet that wasn't a totally depressed and empty souled individual. Every little comment that isn't uber liberal makes them hyper sensitive or reduced to tears. Rational judgment based on facts rather than pure emotionalism is nearly impossible for them to embrace. Joy, happiness, a sense of confidence, pride, well being and inner calm rarely seems to be a part of a liberals existence. They thrive on misery, sadness, pain and love to overly intellectualize everything adding a hefty dose of delusional interpretations to the mix. That's fine by me, I avoid those types of people like the plague. Who needs to be brought into such a negative realm of thinking and feeling when life is so short and easy to love when you have goals, dreams and the desire to use your free will for positive growth. Being independent and valuing all of my achievments no matter how small or unimportant to others is all that matters. Knowing that no man is ever going to control my thought process or feelings or faith is all that matters to me. Liberals want to be herded into boxes and left their to wallow in their inability to free themselves from mind control. So sad, but it is what it is. Glad I'm not a liberal.

Do you really think that your warped sense of 'conservatism' is really your own? Whether from immigration policies or how national economies actually operate to health care and public education, your 'rationale' has been manhandled and manipulated.

Good grief. This may be the longest generalization with no supporting data (other than the author's no doubt vast and totally representative encounters and his amazing mind and spirit reading) that I have ever seen. Laughable, from the first sentence.

Once again a liberal whiner throws a temper tantrum because the liberal monopoly on political opinion in America was broken by a conservative talk show host and one TV network that tends to be somewhat conservative. The media in America is basically dominated by a group of liberal newspapers, magazines and TV networks. They cannot stand the idea that someone differs with them. They feel that they have a birthright to a total monopoly on the thoughts and opinions of the people in the country. People who differ with them are portrayed as dumb, Nazis and Klansman. Fox News Network and the likes of Rush Limbaugh are the greatest thing that has happened to politics in America. People now realize that there actually is a different way of thinking about things than that which had monopolized their thinking for years.

The underlying problem here is that our citizens are so woefully uninformed, undereducated, and ignorant that they DEPEND on TV and radio to tell them what to think.

The left, the right, they're not interested in anything other than pushing their agenda. What makes a baby grow up to be a Republican or a Democrat, but that ideology which they are exposed to the most often?

If you don't like right wing, left wing, any wing talk shows, don't listen. It's your choice. No one is forcing any of you to listen to, read, or watch anything at all. Start thinking for yourself, and grant other people the freedom in which to do so; that is the roots of a true citizen, a DEMOCRATIC citizen.

This country will be stuck in bipartisan extremist limbo until people learn to think for themselves again. As long as everything they know in life comes from an electronic box, extremism and discontent will hold sway.

Agree with the third part, but not the other two!
There is not one sole possessor of the truth and you might glean something that otherwise hadn't realised by watching Fox or MSNBC etc
What needs to be taught is CRITICAL THINKING, I can watch almost any channel and sort out the wheat from the chaff because I am aware of tricks the news media uses and I won't be sucked into an emotional debate.
I'm right leaning but I often read the NYT, just because I want to know how people I sometimes disagree with arrive at their decisions.

If the people want to watch Fox then they should, but should be able to think critically about the information they are fed

You know, Fox News hasn't been around since the dawn of broadcast media, quite unlike CBS, NBC, ABC, and PBS. These were all, to some degree or other, all left of center news sources. CNN came along but like the others, was also left of center. So at a time when the "traditional" news sources, what we all now call the Mainstream Media, had 100% market share, Fox started with ZERO.
Today, nationally, FOX has a 52% market share. The other five divide up the remaining 48%.
Gee, might it be because FOX is closer in tune with more Americans than the old, Mainstream Media? So when I read a great pile of whinging sobbing of how superior the liberal elites are and how Neanderthal-like everyone else is -- like the opinion piece above does and many posted comments do, what comes to mind are two things in particular: The absence of facts with the whinging and the presumption the old order of having only one point of view -- the left-of-center point of view -- in news broadcasts was not only normal but correct and proper.
So sorry lefties but engaging in political discourse is to engage in the competition of ideas. At last that is happening in news broadcasts... and the right is winning by some measures, 52 to 48.

agreed" whining is just a waste of time and does not constitute a proper argument. The fact is that right wing traditionally and naturally it is also associated with money. I guess I do not have to continue or? That so many US citizens are troglodytes is just a fact. The only difference from other countries is that the relative size of troglodyte party if you will is so much bigger than elsewhere.

The major demographic difference between those on the left and those on the right are whether one is a family w/ children (rural or suburban) vs. other (urban) and/or whether one depends on the government for income/perceived security (salary, welfare, and/or some ethnicities) vs. doesn't.

Calling families w/ children, who earn their own way, Troglodytes and defining that as factual simply indicates you have no real knowledge of the U.S. or its people.

I guess if we are talking about the media, perhaps we should point out how Al Jazeera has had a very difficult time getting permission to broadcast in the United States. If the United States is truly the land of free speech then this shouldn't be an issue.

The extreme media on both the left and right has no desire to inform. It takes its cue from the shock jocks and the old-time hellfire religious preachers. The important thing is not to tell people what they need to know, it is to tell the people what they think they want to hear. For this reason, only one side of an argument is covered and that may not be covered very well. People seem to derive a great deal of comfort from being told that they are right and if you combine that with alleged shocking soundbite facts about the opposition, whether they are true or not, then your point is made.

The one thing that both sides have in common is the need to earn money. This comes from representing the views of the advertisers, and in a political season, (in the United States when is it not a political season?),from political action committees, the money that the candidates have accumulated for reelection, and thanks to the Supreme Court any commercial enterprise which feels it should pay to have its views aired. All of this amounts to a treasure trove which stretches into the billions of dollars.

If you really wish to ascertain what is going on the old adage follow the money is the best. However this is difficult to do since every effort is made to conceal the expenditures. There does not seem to be a single clearinghouse which gives guaranteed reliable figures.

What currently passes for political reporting and analysis in the United States is just a bad joke. It's the old story of empty heads making most noise. But all told it seems that that is what the people want. Perhaps they have no real desire to see things as they are.

It is well known that the rich tend to be fiscally conservative (i.e. right wing) as they would benefit the least from government social spending and yet pay the most in taxes.

It is self evident that one would have to be rich to own a media outlet. Enough said.

The media outlets are almost always right leaning. This, and the fact that only half the time voters vote right-wing governments in the U.S.A shows that it takes a constant supply of brain-washing right-wing propaganda to win only half the time.

That kind of "we lose when the people are successfully duped by the other side!" thing is one of the things we hear far too much of from both sides here in the U.S. It's not true nearly as often as both Democrats and Republicans would like it to be.

Media outlets are almost always right leaning???? What planet are you from? 4 of 5 on-air reporters from non-Fox news broadcasts vote for Democrats and with the decline of unbiased news in favor of blending commentary w/ news, present a very left-of-center point of view.

Try listening to and National Public Radio (NPR) station next time you visit the U.S. Their political coverage is ALWAYS pro-left, anti-right. ALWAYS. And... what a surprise, they always get Federal funding by Congressional Democrat machinations.

Look at the economist prettending to be impartial, blissfully unaware that they are just as culpable for this Neo-Liberal "theology of deregulation and lower taxes that is designed to foster and protect obscene wealth, not to serve the vast majority of our citizens"
Think for a moment has TE ever forcefully argued for tax increases. I afraid the "pot and kettle" analogy is appropriate here

As kamikaze80 rightly said I correctly reffered to neo-liberal. Neo-conservatism (typified by the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld axis) is actually big government, with all the erosions of civil liberties (patriot act) and high spending under the NS (National security) banner, and fiscal intervention.
Neo-Liberalism is a market orientated policy of deregulation, low taxation and other pro-business/marker policies.
The two (neo-liberalism and neo-conservatism) are not necessarily mutually exclusive

Mainstream Media routinely ignore the bloody crackdowns on the Occupiers, Workers and students as these did not promote their image as Champions of Democracy. Nobody is the wiser whether these agenda are right-wings or from the liberal left.